Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, again, gentlemen, for answering all of our questions.
My last question has to do with something that arose as part of the various investigations in the United States. I think committee members followed with interest the reports of the U.S. House committee on transport and later the U.S. Senate committee that looked into these matters. One of the things that really stood out to me was the reference to the use of something called “authorized representatives”. As I understand it, these are employees of Boeing. They work for the company and draw a paycheque from the Boeing company, but they're actually seconded by the FAA—by the regulator—to do the work of the federal regulator.
To me, this seems to put them in the position of being a bit of a double agent and having two masters. It doesn't seem to lend itself to having a certification system that has real integrity. When I raised this with the minister at our committee, he said that this is done all the time and in fact we use authorized representatives in Canada.
Given the shocking revelations that came out of those two reports in the United States around the “culture of concealment” and all of the things that led to MCAS being hidden from the pilots and others, is Transport Canada looking into the role of these authorized representatives? Is this something that we can improve in our validation and certification processes, so that we will have fully separate professionals who are not beholden to the companies that are having their aircraft certified?
It seems to me that this would be something that would benefit the Canadian public and help restore—or at least increase—the amount of trust that people have in these systems.